Earth-like planet discovered

Astronomers have detected a new planet 25,000 light-years away, and it appears to have Earth-like qualities. The discovery was published by a team of scientists from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand in the Astronomical Journal.

The rocky planet in question, named OGLE-2018-BLG-0677, is between the size of Earth and Neptune, and orbits a star — in the same way that Earth orbits the sun — that is one-tenth the size of the sun. One big difference is that this newly discovered planet has 617-day years.

The presence or possibility of life on this new planet hasn’t been determined yet and won’t for a long time because it is too far away for available instruments to determine its temperature.

The planet was discovered using a microlensing technique, which employed telescopes in Chile, South Africa, and Australia, to examine light in the solar system.

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